iRobot
I love Sci-Fi novels such as Peter Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" where an AI does the function of all local and central government in a habitat for no personal gain and every single person is connected to it real time on a personal basis.
The day we can move from the slimy self preserving low-life which seems to inhabit this space now will be a better day for everyone.
I wonder how close we are?
Millions of Chinese students have or will have done engineering and science at the degree level, that combined with the Chinese business acumen will almost certainly ensure them both designing and building the things we require in the future.
The USA will however have plenty of patent lawyers to ensure they are all sued if they try to get too clever.
As a Sci-Fi fan, "Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light" would be a nice one to be wrong
The Internet selling model is here to stay and as long as the artist or author gets their fair cut for creating the work, the model is fine by me. The fact this author is tied to his publisher is between him and the publisher and not my problem.
I've read some rubbish by established authors with ridiculous e-book prices and some fine stuff for $0.99 by authors quite happy with the e-book format, Amazon does not need to apologise to anyone IMHO in fact I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job and the Karma value will be immense, I suspect this is the feeling of a lot of authors (yes there is a lot of shit ebooks to wade through but its worth it when you find a gem!)
If there isnt an ebook and the price is too high I go to the library or dont read it (seriously how many people would seriously read a photocopied book)
Get a life, sci-fi is just entertainment and a little escapeisn, not everyone wants to read through 500 pages of math and physics to find some underlying revelation about the universe.
Saying that a man should be allowed to dream big and NASA are the ones who we should be laughing at considering they currently cant even send a man 100 miles into space.
Hopefully Elon and the new generation of space entrepreneurs will remedy this over time.
(and this is from a New Zealander, not an American)
A Lot of developers have a MOTD file in their applications, before I compiled my motd file I looked everywhere for a simple motd feed but gave up as it was all too much time and trouble and quicker to compile my own off the various text files out there. Maybe a future market but I doubt it (there again porn sites do quite well and you can get it for free)
You seriously need some sort of moderation, no-ones going to stay on a page where on the first page one of the quotes is "does this work"
I seriously hope he takes the NZ government for millions for being a bunch of FBI arse kissers.
And maybe he can use the wads of cash he gets to fund a start-up pirate party here.
The basic research was done by the Germans at the end of WW2 and dont forget Russia, they got there first. Nasa wasnt even around then.
The good thing here is that technically once off planet, you don't have any government to answer too, however I hate to think what regulations the bureaucrats are dreaming up to try and get around this.
Seriously, I'd buy some shares even if its a very high risk venture, if I knew how too.